The Galaxy in Your Palm

Tablets
come in all shapes and sizes these days, from tiny 5-inch ones for small hands
all the way up to 27-inch behemoths that double as desktop PCs. Right in the
middle is the Samsung Galaxy Note 8, which competes directly with Apple’s iPad
Mini. It squeezes a lot of teaching potential into a small slate.

Side
by side, the Galaxy Note and iPad Mini look very similar, although at 0.3- by
5.3- by 8.2-inches, the Galaxy Note 8 is slightly larger. At 11.9-ounces, it’s
also an ounce heavier than the Mini. Both have heavily rounded corners, but the
Mini can be ordered in either black or white. The Galaxy Note only comes in
white.

Both
feel nice in the hand and are well balanced, but the Galaxy wobbles slightly on
a desktop when tapped. That’s because its camera sticks out of the system’s
back by a tenth of an inch.

Inside
is a 1.6GHz quad-core Samsung Exynos processor compared to the Mini’s slower dual-core
A5 CPU. While the Galaxy Note 8 comes with 2GB of RAM and Android 4.1 software,
the Mini includes Apple’s iOS 7 and looks antiquated with just 512MB of system
memory.

The
base models for both come with 16GB of storage space, but the Mini can be
ordered with up to 64GB of storage space. The Galaxy Note tops out at 32GB, but
has a micro-SD card slot that can take up to a 64GB module for a total of 80GB
of storage. The Mini can’t do that.

Both
have mid-sized screens that should be fine for everything from Pre-K to
high-school students. The Galaxy’s 8-inch screen is a tenth of an inch bigger
than the Mini’s but its 1,280-by-800 resolution can show much more detail than
the Mini’s 1,024 by 768 screen. The Note’s screen is much brighter and richer
than that of the Mini and the system’s automatic brightness control worked well
in a variety of classroom conditions.

The
Galaxy’s screen can be split to show two things going on at once, like a
Wikipedia page on one side and a live video feed of the goings on in the Senate
on the other. Below it are the basic Android control buttons for Home, go back
and for opening the menu. By contrast, the Mini’s single control key is often
awkard. Each of these slates has a headphone jack as well as volume controls.

Both
of them have a pair of cameras that roughly match each other’s specs. Using
what Samsung calls Smart Stay, the Galaxy Note’s front camera can monitor the
face of the user to do tricks like preventing the system from going into sleep
mode as long as someone is looking at the device.

Both
displays can handle 10 finger inputs and work with off-the-shelf stylus pens,
but the Galaxy has a huge advantage: it comes with its own precise stylus.
Called S-Pen, it is pressure sensitive and more exact than off-the-shelf rubber
dome pens. The system comes with software for taking notes, writing math
formulas and turning scribbles into sharp-edged figures. There’s even an app
for helping out in a geometry class.

In
addition to thousands of downloadable educational apps, many of which are free,
the Galaxy Note comes with some really useful programs. My favorite is Paper
Artist app, which lets you start with a photo, line drawing or even a picture
that you take at the beginning. Then you can use one of dozens of effects to
color in and draw on the image, making anyone feel like an artist.

Unlike
other Galaxy models, the Note lacks a near field communications (NFC) chip for
short range data links. It’s a shame because the Note can’t exchange contact
info by bumping its back with another NFC device or directly link with
Samsung’s NFC-equipped C460FW printer. You can still print via Google or WiFi.

Like
other Galaxy Note devices, it is short on dedicated ports. Happily, there’s a
lot you can do with the micro-USB connector on the bottom. In addition to
charging and transferring data with a computer, you can use a $40 adapter to
send the screen to a projector or large-screen monitor. It, unfortunately,
doesn’t work with a standard 5-pin MHL video adapter.

After
using it with an Epson BrightLink 485Wi projector, I’m convinced that the pen
goes a long way towards making interactive projectors an expensive luxury. On
the downside, while the slate has a nice place to snap the pen in place when
it’s not in use, there’s no easy way to tether it to the unit. I suspect it’ll
be the first thing to be lost.

Despite
not having a trusted protection module, the Galaxy Note will be one of the most
secure systems at school. In addition to the ability to connect via a virtual
private network, the Galaxy Note can encrypt any file with 256-bit security so
that a teacher’s lessons and grades or a student’s work and assignments stay
private.

Both
the Galaxy Note and the Mini have Bluetooth and 802.11n WiFi built-in and are
easy to connect with a school’s WiFi LAN. In addition, the Note has a cool new
feature that can help in the classroom. It has an IR window that can be used as
a remote control for everything from a DVD player to a projector. Samsung
includes the codes for thousands of devices and the ability to mimic commands
for those not covered.

The
system’s 4,600-milli-amp-hour battery pack is slightly larger than the Mini’s
4,400-mah power pack. It ran for 11 hours and 24 minutes of continuous YouTube
video playback, which should be plenty for a full school day or two of work
between charges.

With
that in mind, it’s surprising that the Galaxy Note is such a strong performer.
On the Antutu Performance Benchmark 4.0, which gives every major part of the tablet
a good workout, the Galaxy Note scored a 20,402 rating. That’s on a par with
Sony’s Xperia Z Ultra tablet, one-third higher than a Nexus 7 and one of the
current top performers among Android slates.

At
$360, the Galaxy Note is priced about $30 more than the iPad Mini, but it
outclasses, overpowers and exceeds it – and every other current tablet – on
every level. It is the right sized slate at the right price.